Part 2 (1/2)
4. All good stories have unity; parts well subordinated; the main lesson unmistakably clear; the point, whether tactfully hidden or brought out by skilful questions, never missed.
This use of stories by exactly reproducing them is naturally the teacher's first method. There follow naturally the _adaptation_ of stories and the making of _original_ stories. The latter way must be dismissed with a single word of caution. Beware of a certain fatal facility in reeling off ”made-up” stories. Have you not heard such teachers and such stories? The latter at least are not true, or healthy, or wholesome. They are about unreal people who do unnatural things. They are a poor, ragged device for covering the nakedness of barefaced moralizing.
No one who has tried to tell Bible stories to children, whether young or old, can fail to appreciate the need of adaptation: of enrichment and expansion on the one hand, of condensation on the other. Suppose the story to be told is the parable of the Good Samaritan. There must first be preliminary work. The minds of the children must be made ready, not merely for the lesson, as, for example, by a talk on the meaning of ”neighbor,” but also for the story. This latter kind of preparation for three reasons:
1. To give your hearers something of the same knowledge about the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, the relations of Jews and Samaritans, the standing and dignity of high priests and Levites possessed by those who heard the parable from the lips of Jesus.
2. To give the setting of the story--time, place, people, customs, atmosphere.
3. To make the language, the steps, the moral, as intelligible to your hearers as they were to the young lawyer to whom the story was first told.
The need of the first way of filling in the picture is brought out by Mrs. Gaskoin in the ”Children's Treasury of Bible Stories,” Part III.:
”Pages might be written about this parable, for every line is full of teaching, wrapped in beautiful words. But my object just now is only to draw your attention to the circ.u.mstance that the third person who pa.s.sed the wounded man--and the only one who cared about his sufferings and took pains to relieve them--was a Samaritan. On this the point of the story turns. First a priest, and then a Levite, whose very offices alone should have made them ready helpers, had shunned their poor countryman, and had pa.s.sed on without even a word of sympathy. But the person who did pity him, and, indeed, showered kindnesses upon him, was, not only neither priest nor Levite, not only a mere stranger--but a Samaritan. Now to say this was the same thing to the ”lawyer” who was listening to the tale as to say that he was an enemy. The Lord could have chosen no stronger expression; in using it he spoke quite as plainly as when, once before, his words had been these: 'I say unto you which hear: Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, bless them that curse you!' Clearly, then, it is only by understanding how the Jews felt toward the Samaritans, that we can grasp what the blessed Savior meant when he said that every disciple of his must love his 'neighbor' as himself.”
A striking example of the mode of using a full knowledge of customs and people to enrich the story is given by the same author in the following vivid word-picture of the thrilling experience of Zacharias. After describing the method of choosing by lot the priests to take charge of the temple services, the narrative continues:
”To Zacharias, however, one autumn, the coveted lot did fall, and leaving his quiet home, he went up to Jerusalem, and there entered at once upon his sacred duties. They lasted for eight days, including two Sabbaths.... Every morning at nine o'clock, and every afternoon at three, a priest entered the Holy Place to sprinkle the incense-offering on the golden altar. He was accompanied by an a.s.sistant priest, who withdrew as soon as he had made the necessary preparations. The privilege of sprinkling the incense-offering, like the other priestly functions, was bestowed by lot. One day, during his week of attendance in the Temple, the lot fell upon Zacharias. So, in his white robes, with bare feet and covered head, he went slowly up, through court after court, to the entrance of the Holy Place. Then a bell rang, all the other ministrants on duty in the Temple took their places, and the people a.s.sembled in the various courts composed themselves for prayer. Zacharias disappeared within the sacred enclosure, and in due course his attendant left him alone there, separated from the Holy of Holies itself only by the splendid Veil-of-Part.i.tion. Silvery clouds of fragrant smoke presently arose from the kindled incense--then, kneeling before the altar, he paused, in prayer and adoration.
Suddenly he became aware that he was not alone. Lifting his eyes he saw, to the right of the altar, a glorious angel, who thus addressed him, dispelling his gathering fear: 'Fear not, Zacharias, for thy prayer is heard, and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.' ... 'Whereby shall I know this?' he asked, hesitatingly. And the angel, answering, said unto him, 'I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of G.o.d, and am sent to speak unto thee, and to show thee these glad tidings. And behold thou shalt be dumb and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season.'
”Meanwhile the people were anxiously waiting for Zacharias to return. His reappearance would be the signal for the laying of the sacrifice upon the altar, accompanied by a joyous outburst of the beautiful Temple music. Great, then, was their uneasy wonder at the unusual delay. But at last he did appear.”
An ill.u.s.tration of what is meant by re-telling the old story in a modern way for modern hearers is found in the following characteristic extract from a sermon of Dr. Parkhurst's on the text, ”And he arose and came to his father”:
”The prodigal had not enjoyed nearly as much as he expected--what he had arranged to enjoy. His scheme had collapsed; his experiment broken down. Going away from home and living as though he had no home had not worked as he expected that it was going to. Lonely, ragged, hungry, he thought the thing all over and said to himself: 'I think I had better go home.' He had let go of home, but home had declined to let go of him. He had been his father's boy for twenty years or more, and his experience in the far country had not been quite able to cure him of it. Home still had a pull upon him.”
While many of the stories both of the Old and of the New Testament need expansion rather than contraction--think of trying to bring the masterly story of Jonah or the wonderfully simple tale of the Shunemite's son into any smaller compa.s.s!--yet the need of condensing the long stories, of Abraham, Joseph, David, Daniel, for instance, is obvious, for we must give the children a picture of the whole life and character of these great and simple figures. To this end selection and suppression are necessary.
The various books mentioned in a later chapter are all more or less successful in the attempt to recast the old original story. So perfect is the original form, however, that the task is one of extreme difficulty. Yet it must be attempted by every teacher, and it is certainly worth a trial. The following suggestions may prove helpful in both modes of adaptation:
1. Use direct discourse. It will require an effort to keep yourself (in your embarra.s.sment) from taking refuge behind the indirect form, saying, for example, ”And when he came to himself he said _that he would_ arise and go to _his_ father and tell him _that he had_ sinned.”
2. Choose actions rather than descriptions, the dynamics rather than the statics of your subject. Those of us who have grown away from childhood tend to reverse the true order, to place the emphasis on the question, ”What kind of a man was he,” and not on, ”What did he do.”
Let what he did tell what he was. Your story will thus have ”go,” as all Bible stories have.
3. Use concrete terms, not abstract; tell what was done, not how somebody felt or thought when something was being done; be objective, not subjective.
4. A story-teller should, in short, have taste. To form this taste it is indispensable that he should not read, but _drink in_ the great masters: Homer, Chaucer, Bunyan, Hawthorne (”The Wonder Book,” for example), and above all the Bible itself. No one can absorb these without unconsciously forming a pure, simple style and getting a more childlike point of view and way of speech. Modern writers and modern ways of thinking are, in general, too reflective, self-conscious, subjective, and, where children are concerned, too direct, bare, ”preachy.”
5. But the secret of story-telling lies not in following rules, not in a.n.a.lyzing processes, not even in imitating good models, though these are all necessary, but first of all in being _full_--full of the story, the picture, the children; and then, in being morally and spiritually up to concert pitch, which is the true source of power in anything. From these comes spontaneity; what is within must come out; the story tells itself; and of your fulness the children all receive.
Finally, the points of practical story-telling may be thus outlined:
1. See it. If you are to make me see it you must see it yourself.
2. Feel it. If it is to touch your cla.s.s it must first have touched you.
3. Shorten it. It is probably too long. Brevity is the soul of story-telling.